1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image information obtaining method, an image information transmitting apparatus and an image information transmitting system, and particularly relates to an image information obtaining method, an image information transmitting apparatus and an image information transmitting system in a pull model in which a communication device receives and obtains image information from the image information transmitting apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-215397 discloses a digital electronic camera having an image communication facility by which an image can be transmitted efficiently and reliably by making adaptations so that a recipient can also select the image to be transmitted.
In the wireless communication system of the digital camera shown in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-215397, part of image information (for example, an image called a thumbnail image) is displayed to a receiving end. A recipient can select an image to be received while seeing this display, but parameters representing properties of images such as image resolution and data compression rates cannot be converted in accordance with applications and transferred to a printer and the like. Also, in the case where all the image data can not be displayed on one screen on the liquid crystal monitor because the digital camera has stored, for example, ten or more kinds of image data, a process is required for switching the displayed image, thus causing a disadvantage that it takes much time when the recipient selects image data to be transmitted.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-308981 discloses a wireless communication system of the digital camera in which by connecting a wireless communication terminal to the digital camera, image data stored in the digital camera is transmitted to the wireless communication terminal and is then stored in a memory portion temporarily, the image data to be transmitted is displayed on a liquid crystal monitor of the above described digital camera through a key button device of the wireless communication terminal and is then transmitted to establish connections to a wireless base station, and the image data is transmitted to a commercial network and the like.
With the wireless communication terminal described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-308981, a user only selects the transmission mode of the image data through function keys, thus causing a disadvantage that the parameter representing the property of the image cannot be received in accordance with applications and transferred to other communication apparatuses.